Catasterismi (
Greek Καταστερισμοί
Katasterismoi, "placings among the stars") is an
Alexandrian prose retelling of the
mythic origins of stars and
constellations, as they were interpreted in
Hellenistic culture. The work survives in an epitome assembled at the end of the 1st century CE, based on a lost original with some possible relation to the work of
Eratosthenes of
Cyrene; thus the author is alluded to as
Pseudo-Eratosthenes. The
pseudepigraphic attribution to Eratosthenes presumably was meant to bolster the work's credibility, but while the
Catasterismi describes constellations, it is more concerned with the mythological narrative attached to each than with the mathematical tradition of astronomy. Although there is no absolute distinction between
astronomy and
astrology in antiquity, intellectual circles in Alexandria during the 1st BCE began to distinguish between astrology for making predictions and astronomical observation for scientific conjecture.